Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust and Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust have appointed Colin Lynch as their joint chair, a move intended to bring greater strategic alignment between two of the county’s largest health providers. Lynch will take up the role on 1 July 2026, following the end of the tenures of Dr Jackie Craissati, who chaired the mental health trust from 2021, and John Goulston, who chaired the community health trust from 2018. 

The appointment consolidates board-level oversight of the two organisations under a single individual, without altering their status as separate legal entities. Each trust retains its own board, management structure and financial accounts.

Lynch brings substantial experience of NHS governance at senior levels. He currently serves as vice chair of North East London NHS Foundation Trust, an integrated community and mental health provider, and was previously its senior independent director. He is also chair of Locala Health and Wellbeing, a social enterprise providing NHS and local authority-commissioned community health services across West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. 

Sheila Stenson, chief executive of Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust, said Lynch’s experience of system working and cultural development would be valuable as the two trusts seek to strengthen governance and deliver more joined-up care for local people. Mairead McCormick, chief executive of Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, said he brings a breadth of experience across community physical and mental health, with an understanding of what is needed to help communities thrive. 

Lynch will divide his governance duties across both boards, attending and chairing meetings for each organisation in turn. The role is one of strategic oversight rather than operational management: the two trusts each retain their own chief executive, and day-to-day leadership remains separate.

The joint appointment reflects a broader pattern within the NHS of neighbouring trusts seeking to reduce duplication and improve coordination without committing to formal merger. Shared governance arrangements of this kind have become increasingly common as integrated care systems push providers to align their planning and service delivery. The logic is that a unified perspective at the board level can facilitate agreement on shared clinical pathways, workforce planning and back-office functions more readily than parallel governance structures operating independently.

For Kent and Medway, the timing carries particular weight. From April 2026, eating disorder and children and young people’s mental health services previously run by North East London Foundation Trust in Kent and Medway transferred to Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust,  significantly expanding the trust’s remit at the same time as the new governance arrangement takes effect. From spring 2026, the trust has also been working to bring together children and young people’s mental health services and all-age eating disorder services under a single point of access,  a shift that makes coordination with community health services provided by Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust all the more consequential.

The mental health trust highlighted that its outgoing leadership oversaw a period in which the organisation achieved financial balance, reduced waiting times in community services despite rising referrals, and improved dementia diagnosis rates, moving from one of the poorest-performing to one of the best-performing trusts nationally.  The joint chair appointment is intended to carry that momentum forward within a more coordinated governance framework.

Whether the arrangement serves as a precursor to a formal merger remains to be seen. Officials from both trusts have not indicated that merger is under active consideration. The joint chair model offers a degree of strategic cohesion while preserving each organisation’s accountability to NHS England and, in the case of Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, to its council of governors. That balance of integration and independence is, for now, the stated objective.

Lynch described the appointment as an opportunity to support more ambitious transformation across mental and community health services in Kent and Medway, noting that developments within places and neighbourhoods offer considerable scope for improvement.